Amendments: Prisons

The US prison population is higher than any other country in the world. We, the land of the free, have more of our population in prison than China or Iran. Further, people leaving our prisons are often completely unable to reintegrate into society. This results in a huge and increasing portion of our population being unproductive and drains on our resources, to no good end.

So why do we have so many people in prison?

The first answer is obvious: the war on drugs, as presently implemented, is an utter failure. Punishing people with ever-longer prison sentences for relatively minor crimes makes everything worse. We have more people in jail, and the crime rate does not go down. We need to eliminate jail time for simple possession of drugs. This alone will reduce our prison population to something like half of what it presently is, without endangering the general populace.

1) Simple possession of controlled substances shall in no case be punished by incarceration, nor considered in determining the length of incarceration for other related crimes, unless such incarceration is primarily for the purpose of treatment. This applies retroactively to all persons presently so imprisoned.

Similar problems apply to other crimes. Mandatory minimum sentences do not lower crime rates. They are a political game our elected officials play so that they can appear tough on crime, to the detriment of us all.

2) Courts shall have full discretion over the sentencing of convicted criminals. All mandatory sentencing laws are void. Presently incarcerated convicts shall have the right to have the length of their sentences appealed if those sentences were set by mandatory minimum laws.

Those two things should greatly reduce the American prison population, without arbitrarily releasing violent criminals. But there are still other people in jail that shouldn't be: innocent people.

Consider the concept of a plea bargain. Say you're accused of a crime, a crime you did not commit. If the jury gets it wrong and you're found guilty, you may spend the rest of your life in jail. If, however, you plead guilty to a lesser crime, you "get to" spend only five years in jail. You are offered an incentive to lie and ruin your own life. Why? Well, so the government can save money! Forget justice, prosecuting all those cases in open court is expensive!

This is one of the worst ideas in the history of free countries. If our justice system isn't funded sufficiently to operate without blackmailing innocent people, our justice system isn't funded sufficiently. Plea bargains should never be allowed.

3) The state shall not offer persons accused of a crime any inducement to plead guilty, including the option of pleading to a lesser charge.

Finally, we have the concept of privately-run prisons. Practically, these simply don't work. There are some things you don't want run by the lowest bidder, and keeping dangerous people away from the rest of society is one of them. Beyond that, though, it's a very bad idea to create a section of society that benefits from there being more people in jail. That's a terrible incentive to add to any system.

4) The operation of prisons shall not be outsourced to any non-governmental agency.